Why is it that you can be sailing along in a conversation with your spouse or lover and seemingly everything is going great, and then all of a sudden it seems like you hit a complete dead-end beyond which you cannot move… and like everything freezes in the relationship?
Psychologist and marriage counselor Dr. Max Vogt has suggested an answer. One or both of you has committed what he calls one of the “Four Deadliest Communication Mistakes.”
Dr. Vogt claims that any one of these four “communication mistakes” can stop intimacy dead in its tracks like a train wreck.
The “Four Mistakes” most often happen when people are trying to solve difficult or confusing parts of their relationship. Vogt says that the greatest opportunities for intimacy — and the greatest chance at blowing the intimacy — happen exactly at these moments. Which is why he suggests you need to understand when you are making those mistakes.
1. Explaining yourself. You try to explain your position, and dig yourself in the more you try.
2. What he calls the “You Too,” or turning the tables right back on your partner, showing them that they “are no angel either.”
3. Asking “well, what do you want me to do different?” Although this seems like a generous offer, Vogt says more often than not it’s just a way of “turning off the heat” from your partner and attempting to get them to become your “probation officer.” Not a good idea in intimacy, says Vogt! We agree.
4. “Going away.” By this, Vogt refers to both literally walking out with the attitude “I just can’t take this right now,” but also going away by spacing out, changing the topic or other (many other) creative tactics to turn down the heat.
Vogt claims that once a couple is in the “vicious cycle” of these deadly communication mistakes, it’s often very difficult to get out of it. So his recommendation is to recognize the power of them and avoid them as much as possible.
For more information on the Four Deadly Intimate-Communication Mistakes, including other videos and helpful suggestions about how to communicate better in intimate relationships, visit EasyMarriageCounseling.com
Via EPR Network
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